All Is Well

Nope, sweet boy, your presents aren't hidden in our kitchen cabinets...

The busyness of the season seems to be starting. That infamous countdown. I find myself (along with many others) visiting Target quite often on my lunch break. We bought most of Finn's gifts off of blessed Amazon and they should be arriving soon. We have more gifts we wanna buy and a gathering at our house to get ready for. But I find myself wanting to slow my pace down before I get carried away. And I want to make sure I take the time to sit and dwell on the meaning of it all. It's easy to lose it...but Christmas and the season really is a special time.

You see the words "Joy" and "Hope" and "Cheer" everywhere, although sometimes the Christmas season can feel quite the opposite. I have yet to receive a card that says "Stressed" over a sweet family picture, but I have a feeling many people can relate. One day while driving home from work, a Christmas song came on that I had never heard before...and I gotta say it moved me. Whether it be the fact that I'm a sucker for some beautiful choir voices, or that A minor chord that is my absolute fave, and oh yeah, the beautiful peaceful words on top of it all...it moved me. And it reminded me that in the end, when my perspective is in the right place, all is well. 

Wishing you peace and joy this Christmas season...and most importantly the reminder of God's marvelous love.

11 Months!

Sweet baby boy turned 11 months old yesterday.

My heart feels incredibly full when I sit and think about this kid. He's been growing and learning and making us laugh and melt.

We haven't nailed down his first word at all, although there's lots of mama ramblings (or "mums" - like a little British boy, lol) and he also has lots of dada ramblings as well. He's been saying "hey" and "hi" forever now. These past few days he's been saying something that sounds like "dot", with a hard "t" at the end. It's kinda hilarious to us.

Let's see...what other tricks has he been pulling out? He loves opening our kitchen cabinets right now. I have the thingys to install to keep them from opening, but I just gotta do it. I also wanna leave one cabinet open that he can raid and play with the tupperware and pans. He's mostly just a walking and jabbering machine right now (but still jabbers in his quiet way). Another tooth has broken through. This boy still only has the two bottom teeth, but a top tooth just broke through last week. He's also waving, not every time on command, but pretty often. I was Facetiming with them on my break and I was waving and saying bye to Finn and he was opening and closing his hand waving at me, then he got distracted staring at his opening and closing hand. Then he ran off waving...Rob said it looked like he was chasing a butterfly, lol.

So there's a whole bunch of info that I know one day we'll still care to read about when he's 13, haha.

We're looking forward to his first Christmas and giving him some gifts we think he'll get excited about. And then my oh my, his birthday will be here. It doesn't feel real. And I haven't planned a thing for a party. I'm not planning on going overboard with it, but it's exciting to think about.

Our big boy.

We love you so much, sweets.

Baby's First Christmas Tree

I wanted to try to get some pictures of Finn with his very first Christmas tree. I read up on some great Christmas tree photography tips on Under the Sycamore here...but honestly I wasn't even able to try them. Hah. This boy wasn't wanting to sit still...ah what can I say, we've got a mobile baby on our hands.

So then I plopped him on the couch and gave him something to play with (mama's lens cap saved the day!), hoping to get some more shots with the tree in the background. 

Our sweet baby...

Then he kept trying to walk off the couch (don't worry, I'm there, as well as an ottoman)...

And it then turned into a game of me pushing him back into the couch and he'd giggle like crazy...

And that was the end of it. Lol. I may try again, but at least I got a few. This year I'm asking for a new lens for my camera, a 50mm. Right now I just use my kit lens that came with my Nikon D3100. So I'm really itching to get that and hopefully grow in my picture taking skizzles. It's been such a creative and rewarding hobby for me...and my constant photo subject is kinda cute, so that helps. :)

Speaking of my photo subject, he turns 11 months tomorrow...whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

For The Love of Pizza - Kitchen Art

Let me tell ya, this art project certainly wasn't pretty at first. But it's finally complete.

Pizza wheel kitchen art? Check. For a while I was trying to think of what to paint on this board to place in the kitchen. I knew I was thinking of doing a silhouette or outline of some sorts. So I was browsing through kitchen art on Pinterest and kept finding spoons and spatulas and forks and roller pins. You must know that I'm not much of a baker, a cook, or anything in the kitchen department really. So all of those things don't feel that fitting for Rob and I.

But let me tell ya, we are pizza lovers. Mm hmm. Fo sho. So with that, pizza wheel kitchen art was born.

The original idea was to use a wood burner to follow the outline that I traced of our genuine pizza wheel. 

Unfortunately wood burning is not for the faint of heart. Or I should specify, not for Lisa. At least not this go around. I'm sure there's much to learn...but let me tell you, I tried. And I tried. And I tried.

Pretty right? Lol. I'm not sure if it had to do with the wood grain that caused lots of bumps, I don't know. It was just a hot mess. (I should explain all the random marks around the thing were after I declared it a disaster and it then became a test piece of wood) At one point I tried seeing if a sharpie would work (you can see on the handle in the pic below) and that just bled and looked horrible.

Yep, I almost gave up on this idea. I had one more spare wood piece left, so I sketched the thing on there for a third time and hoped that the paint would take.

And thankfully it did.

Using a flat tipped small brush I was able to get a crisp line.

Originally I had just the pizza wheel on there but it felt like it was lacking for me once I put it on the shelf, so I then added a black border and painted the sides black as well.

Peek-a-boo Christmas tree... :)

Maybe one day wood burning and I will meet again...but for now, I'm okay with a little distance. Paint and a good brush saved the day.

Christmas Time Is Here

Although we did have some time to relax, a lot of the Thanksgiving weekend was heavy on the decorating side. We got our tree...got her standing...then I threw some lights and ornaments on her (if only it were that easy)...decorated our mantel and then that's pretty much it for decorating. I tend to reach a peak when it comes to Christmas decorating...maybe many of you do the same...but I'll have this energy to do it all and then slowly it starts to fade and I better hurry up and finish all I can before that energy is gone. 

So while the motivation was pumping on Friday, we set out to get our tree...

Christmas tree shopping in a Lowes parking lot...totally idyllic right? ;)

  

It's an ongoing joke of Rob's love for Christmas tree shopping...lol...whatever Rob, you know you love it!

Sweet boys...

We stopped by Target and got Finn a baby's first ornament (yeah, I was suckered by the elephant cuteness) and a stocking as well.

He approved. :))

The tree-standing-up experience was so much easier this year (last year it fell multiple times...Rob loved that experience). And I can't remember if our previous trees had the wrappings around it, but either way, this made it so much easier. Finn got to watch from his pack and play while we had some Christmas Pandora playing.

Finally got around to decorating it the next day or so while Finn napped. When he woke we showed him the tree and asked him where he wanted to hang his ornament. (gah, he looks so big to me in this pic!)

He pointed at a spot on the tree so I placed his ornament there. :)

Here she is from far away. Our first large tree...we started out with the table top ones, then to the 5-6 footers, and now 7-8. Oh and I can't express how excited I am to finally place the tree in our front window now that we have furniture in this room. I'm sure I've mentioned that to Rob about a billion times, lol. I'm known to repeat things that I'm excited/happy about.

My current favorite decorating combination for our tree. White glass ornaments along with limey green ones and pine cones. Makes me feel like I'm in Aspen or something.

The previous day I had decorated our fireplace mantel, once again while Finn was napping. I brought him out from his nap and he was loving those lights. Fuzzy shot, but love my sweet boy seeing Christmas in our house for the first time...still sometimes can't believe he's ours. <3

And yesterday while Rob was getting some sleep in for work, Finn was getting antsy in his room so we went into the living room to chill in the pack and play. I put on Polar Express and started to work on an art piece for our kitchen shelves while the boy played for a little bit.

Three stockings on the mantel...love.

I can't believe December is here. I'll be sharing a post this week of my adventures with this art piece for the kitchen. Let's just say third try is a charm. Wowzers, did I almost throw in the towel on this one. Happy Christmas season everyone!

Can It Be Thanksgiving Every Day?

Ready for a Thanksgiving picture reel? I know these posts are more for me and for my love of capturing a day through pictures. It was a special one, Finn's first Thanksgiving (even was able to eat some turkey) and relaxing with some family while ringing in the holiday season...yes, the stockings are officially hung and although our tree is just standing bare in the corner, it's definitely feeling a lil like Christmas around here.

But back to Thanksgiving...started out with breakfast at my mom's and a lil parade watching...

Or no parade watching for these two boys...love Finn's face in this, lol.

How nice it was to actually get a cold Thanksgiving for us Floridians, all the way down to the high 30's in the morning. A welcomed difference to a humidity filled day in the 80's...

After Finn took a nap at home, we then trekked out to my dad and step-mom's house for the big dinner. Lots of pictures were taken here. Oh how I wish Rob and I had real grass in our yard...not just weeds, you know?

All of us kids got together for a pic...

With the permission of Rob, I'm able to share this. Maybe you've noticed, maybe not, but over the past 6 months Rob's eyebrow has kinda turned white in one spot. He's pretty sure it's from the stress of starting his new job, but with our crazy schedules and the little amount of sleep Rob gets, all of that could be a factor too. All that to say that my sister-in-law came up with a solution for his eyebrow that he's grown to jokingly detest. A little eyebrow pencil and it's good as new. Didn't get an after pic but it looked just like before. Ah, sibling memories. :))

After we ate we went out for a walk and some football throwin...

Finn already wishin he could join...

Beautiful sister-in-law...

Dad and I rockin the flannels...

If only it could be Thanksgiving and the long weekend every week. Thankful for so much, words can't express. And even though this goes without saying, I am ever so grateful for these two boys.

Hoping you all had a great day as well. Plenty of posts to come...tree hunting and decorating, and also attempting my hand at some wood burning. So far, that's just going so-so...but hoping it'll turn around. Right now I'm just looking forward to getting the smell of smoke out of my nose. Yum. :)